


Uncomfortable

by Obsessivecompulsivereadr



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Communication, Homophobia, Lack of Communication, M/M, Michael's POV, References to physical abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 09:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19060276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obsessivecompulsivereadr/pseuds/Obsessivecompulsivereadr
Summary: Michael wakes to a slight headache and a gnawing thirst, but as he lifts his head, he realizes that a leftover bottle of beer won’t be anywhere within reach because he’s not at home.  He turns his head to find exactly what he expects to find.  A tuft of soft brown hair across his shoulder and the peaceful face of Alex Manes.Fuck.  He lets his head fall back to the pillow again, which just makes the headache spike more.





	Uncomfortable

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could just write fluff with these two. But this damn show has made it so that there are so many things to talk about and yet they don't TALK.

Michael wakes to a slight headache and a gnawing thirst, but as he lifts his head, he realizes that a leftover bottle of beer won’t be anywhere within reach because he’s not at home.  He turns his head to find exactly what he expects to find.  A tuft of soft brown hair across his shoulder and the peaceful face of Alex Manes.

 _Fuck_.  He lets his head fall back to the pillow again, which just makes the headache spike more. 

They did it again.   

He thinks about how futile all these past months have been for them both.  Months of staying away from each other, months of fighting, months of Alex avoiding him.  Months of Michael warring against everything that Alex means to him.  Months of finding Alex drinking at the Wild Pony on nights Michael wanted to drown himself in the bottom of every bottle all by himself, all the while resenting Alex’s presence in the one place where Michael had _dibs_ on self-destruction. 

Months of Michael fucking up with Maria only for the two of them to crash and burn once she found out about aliens.  Months of Michael attempting to get therapy for himself, thanks to some referrals from Valenti, of all people.  Months of wasting that time struggling to open up to someone Michael can’t even be honest with.  Months of Michael telling himself, _lying to himself_ , that being alone is better than anything that’s happened before. 

All of it for nothing because once he’s in the same room with Alex Manes, they just can’t stop. 

They implode and try to burn each other out of their systems.

His movements wake Alex, who turns to him and mumbles softly, “Mornin’.” 

Michael looks at him, and the mussed hair and sleepy eyes constrict _something_ inside Michael’s chest.  “Hi.”

“We did it again, didn’t we?” Alex sighs.  He flips over onto his back, adjusting the sheet around his waist, and turns his head to look at Michael.

“Yeah,” Michael turns on his side, facing him, waiting for a sign that Alex is going to ask him to leave.  Of all the times they have fought and fucked each other over the years, this is the first time Michael has woken up in _Alex’s_ bed. 

Alex reaches a hand up and tangles it in his curls, and Michael’s eyes close reflexively.  He loves when Alex does this.  He loves when Alex pets him, like he’s a cat who can’t get enough attention.  Michael huffs with irony as he thinks it, because _yeah_ , he’s never been someone who _ever_ got enough attention from Alex Manes.  He never will be.

It’s like another addiction to him.  It overpowers his need for alcohol and acetone and settles deep inside him because, when it comes to Alex, Michael just absolutely _cannot_ get enough. 

Even when they tear each other apart over it.

“We have to stop sleeping together when we’re drunk,” Alex whispers as he untangles his fingers from Michael’s hair.  Michael sighs at the action because, when it happens, it’s always the signal that Alex is about to be rational and logical.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Michael agrees as he tugs at the pillow to make it more comfortable beneath him.  “We should stop fighting, too.”

But they never do.

Alex raises an eyebrow but then agrees with a short nod of his head against the pillow.  “I wish I knew how to stop fighting.” 

“We’re really good at it though,” Michael says tiredly.  

Fighting seems to be the second thing they’re both good at, or third, if he counts sex and hurting each other.  But he’s not sure if he can even count fighting and hurting each other _separately_ , since they use one to do the other.

“I don’t want to be,” Alex whispers. 

He looks afraid, and that kills him because he’s so tired of seeing Alex afraid. 

Michael brushes the back of his fingers against Alex’s cheek, “I’m sorry for what I said last night.”

“Which thing?” Alex closes his eyes and turns his head into the touch. 

“The thing about you not belonging there.”

Michael thinks about how the fight started. 

_\------_

_“Why do you do this here?” Michael had asked, completely smashed and uncaring of how he came off to anyone in the bar.  He was tired of people staring, tired of his own chaos of thoughts both night and day, and tired of watching Alex getting in Michael’s space, but just far enough out of reach that Michael couldn’t stop wanting to hunt him down to… touch._

_“Why do I do what here, Guerin?”  Alex had replied, also drunk and ready to fight again._

_Like they’d been doing for months since their last talk in the Airstream.  What they did these days wasn’t talking.  The last honest conversation had been that night, before Michael fucked everything up by not showing up for the promised one the next day._

_Michael had looked around the room and gestured, with his eyes, towards Maria where she watched them from behind the bar.  It was over with her, and it had been for weeks, but he knew it made Maria uncomfortable whenever Michael and Alex showed up in the same space at the same time.  She didn’t want to see Michael there because it reminded her of everything he’d kept from her, and she didn’t want to see Alex because it reminded her of everything she’d kept from him.  With both of them there, something was always just below the boiling point.  Until it wasn’t anymore, and then they were yelling, and then shit hit the fan all over again._

_Alex being here made Michael uncomfortable because all he wanted was to feel good things again.  Not the nightmares about his mother’s death and his blackouts from the alcohol and acetone that he couldn’t explain to anybody and couldn’t handle.  Not the sight of Max’s dead body and the memory of Liz’s heartbreak.  Not the anger he felt after Max was brought back, aimed at his brother for taking away the choice about healing Michael’s hand.  He wanted to stop feeling the fear that every time he looked at Alex he would see Jesse Manes and his wrath-filled smirk, promising to hurt them both over and over again if they didn’t stay away from each other._

_“Why not here?” Alex had asked._

_“Alex, you know how hard it’s been for me lately,” he’d begged._

_“How hard what’s been?” Alex stopped in the middle of the floor, arms wrapped around himself and a hurt expression on his face._

_Michael had looked again between Alex and the bar.  “Come here, please.”  He’d pulled him toward the bathroom, before checking himself when he remembered that Alex needed steadier support than Michael could give him right then._

_Once he’d gotten Alex away from the crowd, he whirled on him.  “You know what I’m talking about.”_

_“You know, I think there’s something inherently wrong with the people in this town,” Alex sneered.  “Everyone seems to think everybody else knows something that they don’t actually know.  But then other things, like my father beating the hell out of me, are the town’s worst kept secrets.  But then everybody acts on this god-damned faulty information… without considering how it might affect everyone around them.”_

_Alex had drawn into himself physically, but the expression on his face was sharp and unrelenting.  He was drunk, but he wasn’t stupid._

_“I don’t like it when you come here.  Not right now.  I need space.  I need this to be my space,” Michael gestured towards the customers of the Wild Pony._

_He knew he was being unreasonable, but he was also drunk, and this was the only other place where Michael felt he could punish himself without judgment.  Where he didn’t have to watch Isobel cry or Max feel sorry for him.  Where he didn’t have to watch Alex become the same sad, alcoholic mess that Michael had been for the last decade.  Where he didn’t have to look up and see Alex and feel the pain all over again._

_This is where Michael belonged.  Not Alex._

_Alex Manes was the one who held it together.  Alex was the one who always walked away.  He didn’t get drunk every night and stagger out of the bar five minutes after closing, wondering how to get home and how to navigate the other drunks who wanted to hurt him for being himself._

_Alex had stood tall and looked at him, “Just say it, Guerin, I’m a big boy.”_

_“You’re not supposed to be here!” Michael had shouted.  “You don’t belong here!”_

_Alex’s face had fallen, and he’d closed his eyes._

_“I can’t look at you like this,” Michael had said softly._

_Alex had opened his eyes, and Michael saw determination.  Like he was just drunk enough to really tell Michael off, so he just waited for what was to come._

_“Oh, we can’t have that, now can we?” Alex had stared at him._

_And there it was.  Sarcastic Alex had come out to play._

_Michael had opened his mouth to reply, but Alex stopped him.  “Just shut up for once, Guerin.  You don’t get to do this, too.  I’m tired of everybody doing this to me!”_

_Michael had been confused, and the alcohol and acetone hadn’t helped anything._

_“Doing what to you?” he’d asked._

_“I’m tired of Isobel throwing uncalled for jabs at me when she sees me on the street, despite not knowing a god-damned thing about what I’ve been through, but I’m supposed to be okay with it because she’s just defending you.  I’m tired of Max showing up at my home, coming at me with questions that he has no business asking because he’s always trying to figure out what I’m planning.  Or what he thinks I'm planning.  When I have done nothing but try to protect you ever since you told me the truth.”_

_“Alex,” Michael had said softly.  He hadn’t been aware of either of his siblings doing that.  He would have a talk with them once he’d sobered up._

_Alex was his battle, not theirs._

_“Don’t ‘Alex’ me.  It’s worse with you, and Maria, and Liz.”_

_“What’s worse?” Michael was almost too afraid to hear it._

_“Liz suggesting to me that I shouldn’t come here while you and Maria were still screwing each other.  Because it made you and Maria uncomfortable.  Because it hurt you to look at me, and it made Maria feel guilty when I showed up.  But I was supposed to be okay watching the two of you hook up all over town.  I wasn’t allowed to be uncomfortable with that, because fuck my feelings, right?  But God forbid either of you have to look at me.”_

_Michael had stopped trying to respond.  He'd nearly stopped breathing.  He'd had no idea what to say to that anyway because he hadn’t known about that either.  He had known that Liz was torn between Maria and Alex over this, but he hadn’t realized that Alex had been frozen out by everyone._

_That was his fault, too, he guessed._

_He’d told Isobel that looking at Alex reminded him of Jesse Manes, and he’d eventually told her the truth about his hand.  He’d told Max about the connection between Alex’s father and his injury, and then he’d ended up with Maria in the months following that fight.  He hadn’t realized that Max would intervene, when he really should have.  He should have expected it since Max always tried to make the wrong things right.  He’d told Maria it was over between him and Alex, so she’d made her own choice based on, like Alex had said, faulty information._

_“You can’t even look at me,” Alex whispered, his voice almost drowned out by the music thumping behind them.  “When you do, you get this expression like just seeing me makes you sick.  Then you look away.  I guess I deserve that for being born a Manes,” Alex had shrugged sadly._

_“That’s not… I didn’t realize.  I didn’t mean to make you feel like that,” Michael had finally managed to say._

_“It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t mean to do.  I’m tired of it.  All my life, people have gone out of their way to make me feel uncomfortable.  You know better than anyone how much I risk every day just by existing.  Because when I wasn’t dealing with homophobes trying to jump me in the parking lot, I had to deal with my own father who, even on his best day, would have rather killed me than look at me.”_

_Michael hadn’t said anything, couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to.  So, after a beat with no response from Michael, Alex had turned on his heel and left._

_He’d watched him walk away, hesitating for too long.  Long enough to give Alex a head start.  Then he'd chased him through the bar, winding his way through drunk, staring patrons.  He’d had no clue what he was supposed to do when he caught up with the man, but when Alex slammed open the door out into the cool night air, Michael had followed._

_He found Alex standing still outside his truck, and he’d looked as if he was contemplating driving.  Michael had approached him and stood behind him._

_“Maria won’t even look at me anymore,” Alex had said softly without turning around.  He’d known Michael would follow him because Michael always followed him.  “Nobody does.  It’s like it was when I was a kid, everybody glancing away because it’s too uncomfortable to look at me.  Because whatever they thought was the truth about me was making it harder for them.  As if I was intentionally making it harder for them just by existing,” Then Alex had turned and pushed Michael away from him._

_“Except this time, even Liz and Maria are doing it.  I turn around and nobody is there except for Kyle Valenti, and isn’t that ironic?”_

_“Alex.”_

_“I’m tired of you looking at me like I’m the worst thing that ever happened to you, until you decide you want to fuck me again.  Is this what it was like for you every time I left?  Every time I walked away?  Is that why you’re doing this?”_

_“No,” Michael had replied.  “I don’t know…  I’m just tired, Alex.”_

_“So am I,” Alex had sagged against his truck._

_Michael had stepped closer and put a hand on Alex’s cheek.  Then against his better judgment, he’d kissed Alex._

_Again.  Sparking the flame that would inevitably burn both of them again._

_\------_

“Tell me that it’s okay if I don’t leave,” Michael asks.  “We need to talk, and I don’t mean argue.  I mean _talk_.”

Alex’s expression goes soft.  “Yeah, stay.  But don’t touch me.  You know what happens.”

Michael smirks but nods in agreement because he understands that all too well.  He feels the same magnetic pull Alex does, and once Michael touches him, he never wants to stop.  He _can’t_ stop.  And Alex can never pull away either.  Not permanently. 

Alex turns onto his side and adjusts his legs to what must be a more comfortable position.  Michael itches to pull at the stump of his leg and drag it over his hip, getting the man as close to him as possible, but he agreed not to touch.  So, he doesn’t.  It’s hard because he knows exactly what Alex isn’t wearing under that sheet, because Michael is the one who pulled those clothes off him when they got here last night.  He lets himself get distracted by the memory of wrapping himself around Alex during the night, drinking in his moans and wishing that the next morning would never come. 

Because mornings, for them, always mean trouble. 

“Okay, let’s start at the beginning,” Michael says, and he refocuses. 

Alex’s eyes open wide. 

“Why did you leave me?  You said that night in my trailer that you shouldn’t have done it.  Why?”

It’s the question that Michael can never get out of his head, and he never will until he knows the truth.  Until he knows why Alex sacrificed himself to a war he had no business being in.

“Wow, you’re going straight for the kill, aren’t you?” Alex says.

“Come on.  We have to get through this, or we’re going to kill each other.”

Alex nods, “I know.  You’re right.” 

Michael closes his hand into a fist to stop himself from reaching out to touch.  “Talk to me.”

Alex looks at him.  “My dad… you know what he was like.  He threatened me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Michael is never not angry at Jesse Manes, but now the hatred spikes worse than before.  “We could have done something about it.”

Alex stops him with a hand to his cheek.  “No.  I mean he threatened to get to me by _hurting you_.  Your hand was just the beginning.  He said he would finish you off and that I would have to watch it happen.” 

Alex’s eyes fill with tears, and Michael closes his own in response.  “You should have told me.”

“It wouldn’t have done any good,” Alex says miserably.  “I didn’t know then that you had the ability to protect yourself.  I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to leave, that I wanted to learn how to win battles.  My entire life has been a war, and you were a casualty of it.  I didn’t want him to have the power to hurt you anymore.” 

“ _Baby_ ,” Michael whispers. 

He tucks Alex against his chest, holds him and just lets him get it out.  It’s better if they just get everything on the table because they’re never going to be able to start over while there are so many things, so much trauma, between them.  One conversation isn’t going to fix everything, but it could be a start to them forgiving each other. 

Alex cries against him, and the sound tears Michael up inside.  He should have told Alex the truth years ago and maybe they wouldn’t be here. 

Maybe they could have been happy all along. 

Alex mumbles something against his throat. 

“What?”

Alex leans back, suddenly angry, and Michael sees the spark of the old Alex he fell in love with a long time ago.  The one that inspires him and makes him feel like he can do anything as long as Alex is beside him.

“I gave you up for _nothing_ , because he still went after you.  I realized it when I found you in his database.  All this time I thought you were safe, that I’d been able to _keep you safe_ , when all along, he was still coming after you.”

Michael leans in and kisses him gently.  “What else happened?  You came there that night determined to tell me everything.  What was different?  You looked like you were ready to be with me.”

“I was.  I _am_.  I blackmailed him.  Used his own tactics against him.  I thought the threat of a dishonorable discharge would be enough, but it wasn’t.  He came back, ready to fight me again, and shot Kyle.  Because Kyle was in his way.  Kyle survived and drugged him, put him into a medically induced coma,” Alex shrugs like it’s nothing.  

Like he cares nothing about what Kyle had to do to save himself.  He probably doesn’t.  Alex has spent years dealing with a father who would rather he was dead, so it’s only fair that Alex not care if Jesse Manes lives or dies either.  Michael can get behind that.

“Damn, Valenti,” Michael says.  “Didn’t know he had it in him.”

“My dad inspires people to reach their fullest potential,” Alex says wryly.    

“So, you came there that night because he was out of commission.” 

“I thought he was.  I thought we could finally have a chance.”

“And then _I_ tore us apart,” Michael sighs.  “I fucked us up _again_.”

Alex sits up and leans against his headboard.  “No, you didn’t.  You did what you needed to do to protect yourself.”

Michael sits up, too, and leans against him, “I’ve never needed protection from _you._ ”

Alex turns his head and smiles sadly, “Are you sure?  I’ve spent a lot of time hurting you.”

“We’ve spent a lot of time hurting each other,” Michael takes his hand and holds it up to kiss Alex’s palm.  “You about ready to stop?”

Alex laughs wetly, “Yes.” 

Michael turns and kisses him, then gestures towards the door with a tilt of his head. 

“Let’s get some breakfast and coffee.  Lots of coffee.  And then let’s finish this conversation.”

“It might take a while.  There’s a lot to go over.”

Most of it will hurt, and Michael knows that. 

But they’re worth it.  _Alex_ is worth it, and Michael is tired of not being with him, when all it takes is one touch from Alex for Michael to focus, for the worst parts of the world to go away. 

Michael gets up, pulls his jeans on, and reaches for Alex’s prosthetic. 

Part of this conversation is going to involve Michael finally telling him he loves him.  He knows that Alex _knows_ it, has known it for years.  But Michael needs to say it to his face, and to not use it as a distraction or a means to get out of an argument.  Michael needs to stop choosing reminders of the past over the best thing that’s ever happened to him. 

Michael needs to show Alex that he means it and that he’s not leaving.  That he has nowhere to be other than _right here_.  He kneels in front of Alex, as he’s sliding towards the edge of the bed to get up.  Michael helps him put the device on and stands, reaching for Alex’s hand. 

Alex stands and kisses him, and Michael can’t help but stare at his body, as Alex stands there, naked.  Unashamed and so damn sexy that Michael can’t stop staring.  He looks so _good_ , his body trim and toned, and his sun-touched skin still a little sweaty from sleep.  Michael wants to push him back onto the bed and fuck him again.  But that won’t solve their problems. 

“Get dressed.  I’ll go start breakfast.  Then we can sit outside and talk, because we are not done.”

Alex nods. 

Michael moves to leave the bedroom.

“Michael?”  Alex asks softly.

He turns to look at him and laughs.  “That sounds so much better than Guerin, you know?”

Alex laughs.  “I know.  I’m sorry for what I said last night, too.”

Michael tilts his head to accept the apology.  “Hurry up.  I’m hungry.” 

He taps his hand against the door frame and turns again to walk out. 

“Hey,” Alex calls, and Michael sticks his head back in the doorway. 

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for not looking away last night,” Alex says as he picks up his shirt. 

Michael smiles at him. 

“Don’t worry, Alex.  I’m never going to look away again.”


End file.
